George Ramsay, 9th Earl of Dalhousie

George Ramsay, 9th Earl of Dalhousie (styled Lord Ramsay until 1787; formally “The Right Honourable The Earl of Dalhousie”, later also created Baron Dalhousie in the Peerage of the United Kingdom), was a British Army officer whose active service covered the wars of the French Revolutionary and Napoleonic era, culminating in divisional command in the Peninsular War. He subsequently held senior imperial appointments as Lieutenant-Governor of Nova Scotia (1816–1820), Governor-in-Chief of British North America (1820–1828), and Commander-in-Chief in India (1829–1832). He was born at Dalhousie Castle, Midlothian, on 23 October 1770 and died there on 21 March 1838.

Dalhousie entered the British Army in July 1788 by purchasing a cornetcy in the 3rd (King’s Own) Dragoon Guards. He soon shifted from cavalry purchase-entry to infantry command opportunities, raising an independent company and obtaining a captaincy in 1791. In January 1791 he joined the 2nd Battalion, 1st Regiment of Foot (the Royal Scots). With the expansion of Britain’s war effort against Revolutionary France, he purchased the rank of Major in the 2nd Regiment of Foot (the Queen’s Royal Regiment) in June 1792. His early wartime experience was shaped by expeditionary warfare: he served in the West Indies, where he succeeded to the lieutenant-colonelcy in August 1794 and was severely wounded in 1795. That wound ended a continuous overseas stretch but did not slow his promotion thereafter, and it placed him among the cohort of regimental commanders who had already experienced both amphibious campaigning and tropical-service attrition before the main continental operations of the later 1790s and early 1800s.

In 1798 Dalhousie served in Ireland during the rebellion, and in 1799 he served in the Helder/Flanders expedition. In January 1800 he received the brevet rank of colonel, and he then served in the later stages of the Egypt campaign (1801) under the command arrangements that followed Sir Ralph Abercromby’s landing. In April 1801 he led the 2nd Foot in the operation against Rosetta and conducted the siege of Fort Julien on the Nile (8–19 April 1801), an action recorded as being carried out by a British and Ottoman force against a French garrison. This episode is notable for its emphasis on bringing heavy weapons into position over difficult ground and maintaining a close investment until capitulation; Dalhousie’s role is specifically associated with command of the British infantry contingent engaged in the siege.

From 1803 he held a succession of staff and home-service appointments and was advanced to major-general in 1808. In 1809 he served with a brigade in the Walcheren expedition, after which he returned to home staff employment. These years placed him among the senior officers available for deployment once Wellington’s army in the Peninsula expanded into a larger multi-divisional field force with a growing requirement for experienced divisional commanders.

Dalhousie’s principal Napoleonic field command came in the Peninsular War. He became a lieutenant-general on the Peninsula in 1812 and took command of the British 7th Division in October 1812 (holding that divisional command until October 1813, and again from February to April 1814). The 7th Division—newer than Wellington’s earlier-established formations—contained brigades whose regimental composition shifted with operational need; the division nevertheless acquired a distinct role in Wellington’s field army during the 1813–1814 campaigns, with Dalhousie repeatedly employed in the central and left-centre maneuver groupings.

At the Battle of Vitoria (21 June 1813), Dalhousie commanded the left-centre column of attack, comprising the 3rd and 7th Divisions. The approach march and timing of the left-centre column became a point of contemporary remark because the 7th Division’s movement through broken country delayed its arrival relative to Wellington’s plan, while other formations engaged earlier. Despite this operational friction, Dalhousie’s role at Vitoria was treated as significant enough that he received parliamentary thanks for his services connected with the battle. In the same year he was appointed a Knight Commander of the Order of the Bath (KCB) (1813), a decoration closely tied, in practice, to senior operational employment in the Major campaigns of the period.

Following Vitoria, Dalhousie and the 7th Division continued with the army through the subsequent campaign phases into the Pyrenees. During the Battles of the Pyrenees (late July–early August 1813), the 7th Division was lightly engaged relative to some other formations but remained part of the pressure that kept the French from regaining the operational initiative after Vitoria. In the later 1813 fighting along the frontier and into France—actions that culminated in the Allied assaults and counter-attacks around the Nivelle (10 November 1813) and the Nive (December 1813)—the division was in the general Wellingtonian sequence of offensive river crossings and contested bridgeheads, though Dalhousie himself left the Peninsula in October 1813 and therefore did not remain continuously present through the winter battles.

Dalhousie returned to divisional command in February 1814 after the previous 7th Division commander was wounded at Orthez (27 February 1814). In that final stage of the war, as the Allied army advanced deeper into southwestern France, Dalhousie’s employment included the occupation of Bordeaux, a duty that removed him from the final battle at Toulouse (10 April 1814). In the administrative closing phase of the campaign, he was employed in supervising the breakup of the army in France from April to June 1814, an assignment concerned with the controlled dispersal of formations and the practicalities of disengaging from an occupied theatre without disorder.

Although later writers sometimes connect Dalhousie with Waterloo-era service, he declined service in France in 1815. Nevertheless, 1815 was marked by his advancement within the Order of the Bath: he became a Knight Grand Cross (GCB) in 1815. That same year, on 11 August 1815, he was created Baron Dalhousie of Dalhousie Castle in the Peerage of the United Kingdom, a title that complemented his Scottish earldom and reflected the standing he had gained through wartime senior service.

His post-Napoleonic appointments were imperial and administrative rather than field-operational. He served as Lieutenant-Governor of Nova Scotia from 1816 to 1820, and then as Governor-in-Chief of British North America from 1820 to 1828. In 1829 he was appointed Commander-in-Chief in India, holding that command until 1832, when he returned home due to ill health. He was promoted to full general in 1830.

Dalhousie also held colonelcies: he was Colonel of the 6th Garrison Battalion (1809–1813) and later Colonel of the 26th (Cameronian) Regiment of Foot from 1813 until his death. His papers and correspondence are preserved in Major Scottish archival holdings, reflecting both his military career and his later civil appointments.

Sources

• The National Archives (UK) Discovery: Ramsay, George (1770–1838), 9th Earl of Dalhousie, General
• The Napoleon Series: British Generals of the Napoleonic Wars — Dalhousie, George
• Wikipedia (English): George Ramsay, 9th Earl of Dalhousie
• Wikisource: Dictionary of National Biography (1885–1900) — Ramsay, James Andrew Broun (includes summary of George, 9th Earl)
• Wikipedia (English): Siege of Fort Julien
• National Gallery of Canada: George Ramsay, 9th Earl of Dalhousie (1829), John Watson